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Old 07-28-2008, 11:15 AM
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Rack776 Rack776 is offline
Chief Ponti-yacker
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Eastern Pennsylvania
Posts: 516
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Quote:
Originally Posted by uneasyrider View Post
Oh, so the 15's in the cast finish are the ones that are hard to find. That's a good idea with the center caps. You can play with the look of the car with an easy quick change. If you're at a car show and someone happens to show up with another TA like yours it will be easy to fix that in a couple minutes. Not that at any average (non Pontiac specific) car show you really ever even see more than one or two second gen TA's. I think I see more first gen Firebirds at car shows than I do second gen TA's, for that matter even second gen Camaros. I remember when it seemed like every other car on the road was a second gen. F-body. What happened to them all? Why is it the second gen Camaros even seem (to me anyway) scarce compared to the first gen cars. Was it because they didn't sell as many or was it because they just didn't hold peoples imagination like the first gen car OR am I just going crazy?
No your not crazy they made more of them but most are gone due to
a lack of people caring about them & stuff like this at the bottom Ugh!

I rember when the junk yards were full of them and parts were still hard to find
because high school kids hacked up anything that was usable for the interiors
with speaker holes or added scoops & flairs to the outsides.

I always saw more 77-81 camaros than birds back in the day,
I think I read somewhere that they built like 9 camaros
for every 1-2 firebirds of the 2nd gen.

In the 1980s-1990s "true musscle cars" up to 1972
were all the rage and any thing that was considered
a "smog slug" was beat on & modified till it died. usually the guy would
just get another car and start over.

I bought my 75 455 T/A with no rust all numbers matching for about
$2,500 in 1998 and that was considered too much to pay for
a 70s T/A back then. My 75 base bird was $1,100 and had like
2 car loads of spare parts with it. My buddys laughed cause it
had the "crappy pontiac motor" and parts cost way more than chevy parts.
they always said it would never go fast cause it cost too much.

People would give those cars away for like $500 and High School kids would
buy them & finish them off.
I know at least 2 guys I went to school with who between the 2 of them
must have wrecked 8 79-81 camaros & 3 Monte Carlo SS's.

Back then everyone either wanted a 67-69 camaro or a 86-92 camaro
or T/A GTA anything in the middle was considered disposable junk.

I'm glad I grabbed mine when I did, the prices are really going up now
and parts are getting harder to find.

Also arround here they still use the 70-81 camaros & firebirds at
the local dirt circle track, for a street stock class. I breaks my
heart to see 77-81 T/As & Z-28s cut up & painted like Demo Derby cars.
With amature hill billys beating the crap out of them, I'd take photos but it's
kinda gruesome even to see them on a trailer going down the road.
I think they are a big reason fenders & doors are VERY hard to get arround here.
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Jason Rackawack
1975 455 Trans Am - 1975 Firebird 400

Last edited by Rack776; 07-28-2008 at 11:34 AM.